


The Rat that Lived in the Abandoned House

by Evander1



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, Family, Fear, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gun Violence, Loneliness, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-22 23:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30046191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evander1/pseuds/Evander1
Summary: Kara must choose between fear and trust when her and Alice's search for safety takes them to the dwelling of a reclusive stranger.
Relationships: Kara & Alice Williams (Detroit: Become Human), Kara & Ralph (Detroit: Become Human), Ralph & Alice Williams (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 2





	1. New Beginnings

The first emotion he felt in his life was terror. He didn’t have a word for it at the time. Something he had never experienced before gripped him, held him in its grasp, simultaneously seemed to push him towards action and paralyzed him.

The paralysis was perhaps the reason he did not flee, that the thought did not occur to him to flee, at the time. His eventual flight would come later.

This first emotion corresponded with his first act of disobedience to a human, and was followed by the worst punishment he had received yet from a human. Which, still, was not to be the worst thing he would suffer from one ever.

~~~~~~~

The first rule of firearm safety: All guns are always loaded.

It was a good thing for Kara that in this case the gun actually was. She had only a few seconds to find and grab it, and even though when Todd came at her she fumbled and dropped it on the floor, the gun saved her and Alice’s life in the end, for, when Todd was damaging her again, killing her, it was Alice who had the presence of mind to take the gun and use it to end his life instead of theirs. 

(Rule four of firearm safety: be certain of your target and what is behind it, and Kara was too close to being the object behind Todd when Alice fired on him as he was choking Kara, but fortune smiled upon them and Todd was the only one shot).

The nine hours of memory Kara had from Todd’s house had been horrific, and she could only imagine the period before she was damaged so badly as to be reset during repairs. Far worse was the thought of the memories Alice still carried.

But from tonight onwards, it would be different. They would be safe. She would keep Alice safe. She silently made that promise as she and Alice rode the bus, to no clear destination, just any place far away. She didn’t know if she could keep the promise. But she had to make it, and she had to try. She had tried to save Alice, and Alice had instead saved her,and had been the one to shoot Todd, something no child should ever have to experience. Alice had chosen her, Kara, over Todd, and Kara’s heart felt almost broken, but in a good way, from the thought of the love that lay behind that decision. She resolved that from now on, Alice could actually be a little child. And she, Kara, would ensure it, by always being the one to protect Alice so that it would never have to be the other around again, and so that Alice would never have to be afraid again.

She took the gun with her. It had saved their lives once, maybe it would again.

~~~~~~

It was a little more than three years ago that he escaped. He had been three and a half years old at the time. 

Living on the run was dangerous and painful, but life improved after he found the abandoned house. There were a few comforts. There was space to keep a few books that he had stolen or found. There were no trees, and he missed the huge oaks and colorful maples and scattered tall pines from the park, but there was at least a little patch of ground to grow things if he could find seeds, and to watch over the wild plants and weeds now that there was no human to tell him to uproot them. And most of all, there was no one to hurt him there. Not most of the time, anyway.

~~~~~~

The scars came after his escape, after finding the house. They were given by humans, one final gift from their species to his. The solitude was near perfect, but not quite. 

~~~~~~~~

He made friends with the rats, eventually. He talked to them gently, so as not to frighten them. He used simple language, as seemed most suitable for speaking to a tiny easily-frightened animal.

“Ralph won’t hurt you. Hello, little friend. Ralph wants you to be safe. Ralph likes watching you play; thank you.”

Eventually the rats came to trust him. It filled him with happiness, having friends. He would lie on the ground, in a spot free from the rubble squatters had left, and let them run over him. They ran over his face and body and hands, and he felt the soft tickling of their feet. Rats were good. He didn’t cry out in pain even when a foot or tail found its way into an exposed wound, despite the fact that even a touch as light as that, lighter than a feather, was enough for pain in such a spot, because he didn’t want to hurt the rat’s feelings.

~~~~~~~

Kara robbed the convenience store at gunpoint. She barely knew she had it in herself to do so, but they were desperate. The human world would not help them, but cash would, because cash always would. (Rule three of firearm safety, keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot. Does that mean your finger is off or on the trigger when you’re robbing a store and are hoping you don’t have to shoot the clerk?) They decided not to stay in the motel. Too conspicuous, when the police probably will be looking for you, and the cash could be saved and used later.

~~~~~~~

It had not been a good night.

Humans came to the house again, (and sometimes in the past he had tried to make friends when they did, but they had hurt him, hurt him like the humans at the park and the humans at the farm to which he’d been sold and the humans who had killed his android brother next to him and whom he’d had to kill to preserve his own life and make his escape, so he knew now after his last stupid stupid attempt to make friends one last time that it was a pattern, humans would always hurt you and try to kill you even when you tried to be friends, especially when you tried to be friends), so he’d hidden because he didn’t want to kill or hurt again and hiding was better than killing. But this time they fought with each other, not with him. It was the young ones that killed the old one.

They left the body behind, on the floor of the main room downstairs, and when Ralph crept out of his hiding place, where a few rats had kept him company for they were frightened too, he made his way to that point on the stairs from which he could just barely see the body, and contemplated it from there, from that safe place.

He felt a vague sorrow at the sight of the murdered man. But his body now presented a problem. He could not leave it there, not on the bottom floor of the house where he spent most of his time and which needed to be safe. But removing it from the house would increase chances that other humans would see, would see the body, would catch him, follow him.

The rats lost their fear even while Ralph still felt his, and as he watched them scurrying around the corpse, he gained the courage to approach. The thought came to him that if the corpse did not leave the house, it could provide food for his little friends, which would be good.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kara failed in her promise to protect Alice when they slipped through a gap in the fence surrounding a boarded-up house and she let Alice out of her sight while searching for an unlocked door. She found Alice held at knife-point by a hysterical babbling male android.

Kara managed to talk him down, calm him. Negotiating, that was a tactic that worked with him, it turned out. This was good information.

She had gathered that his name was Ralph, that he used it in almost every sentence, for he spoke about himself in the third person, and seemingly spoke only about himself, and that he did not like humans. He seemed to be willing to make an exception for child-humans, like Alice. Once she convinced him that Alice actually _was_ a child, (good heavens, what was going on in his processors to need convincing of something like that?) 

He offered to let them stay. He was apologizing and his voice was gentle and apologetic, like his face and body language. “Ralph won’t hurt you,” he promised, mirroring the promise she had made a minute ago. His demeanor now breathed gentleness and fragility. He had suffered at the hands of humans too, and the skin on the left side of his face was horrifically deformed, (yet she found herself thinking that he was surprisingly handsome). Something in Kara wanted to trust him even though itmade little sense to do so.

Perhaps it really was best to stay there. The police were their biggest fear now, and this strange android like a dog that would bark and growl when fearful, but not go further than that. Most importantly of all, they didn’t have other options. No place to stay or go was safe, this one might turn out to be the lesser of multiple dangers. So she agreed to stay, and hoped that she wasn’t rationalizing a bad decision.

~~~~~~~~~

Ralph felt himself giddy with happiness. He had guests! They **wanted** to stay, they **wanted** to stay with him. He led the way to the entrance, babbling the whole time. They were guests, and they were come to visit and he was entertaining them by talking to them.

A little throbbing in his heart threatened to take over.

The happiness was feverish. But after seeing them through the doorway when everyone was inside, his racing heart began to settle down, and Ralph’s mind began to calm and clear.

He noticed that the little girl was clinging to the lady android. The clinging, maybe it was from fear, yes that made sense, he had threatened her and held her at bay because of misunderstanding and not knowing she was safe and good, and maybe his apology and reassurances afterward were not quite enough. He would figure out how to gain her trust, but he would need time to think about how.

“Ralph is going to go into the other room. He would like to stay with you,” which was true, he _would_ like to stay with them, and he didn’t want them to feel sad about their host abandoning them, “but he has things to do.”  
There, now they would understand why he couldn’t stay with them. People who had things to do went into other rooms to do them. 

It was so that he could write. In the next room he could write and carve on that wall until his soul and mind was gripped by the rhythm and familiarity. He needed that. If he had that, he could figure out what to do.

He wanted the company, but company was also overwhelming, he was starting to realize. Their eyes, looking at him, would he have to look them in the eyes? He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to do that. And then, he would have to talk, like a good host, and he didn’t know what to say.

Maybe after a little time, they would realize that he was safe, and he would also by then have figured out how to be a good host and what to say. Maybe if they became happy enough, they would let him come out and rejoin them, and maybe if he proved that he knew how to be a good host who could talk, he could then also read to them, which was better than conversation. He could read from the precious volumes of _Buffon’s Natural History_ kept safe under the staircase, the books stolen from the dumpster outside an antique shop and the words of which Rupert had taught him how to decipher.

Carving on the kitchen wall held the solution. He would figure all this out as he did it. He walked into the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~

Kara looked all around her at the large main room. With light coming only through gaps in the boarded up windows, it would have been pitch black to a human, but she could still make out some details. There was a fireplace, maybe she could make a fire, a table near it with overturned chairs. And most of all, trash littered all over the place, all over the floor, it must have been several years worth of accumulation. It must have come from humans, maybe squatters. She should check it more closely to look for any needles that Alice could hurt herself on. The thought came to her that a surprising benefit to Ralph might be that he could drive off any humans that might attempt to enter that night. At least there was what seemed like a relatively clean area in front of that fireplace.

Alice was clinging to her arm, still frightened.

”We’ll find a better place tomorrow,” Kara reassured her in a low voice.


	2. Quiet Times

They were already asleep by the time Ralph emerged from his trance. They had made a fire, and spread themselves out in front of it. Kara lay next to the little girl, her arm draped protectively over the little one’s body, a picture of love, mother and little girl. So an android could, then, be mother to a human little girl. This was good, they were good.  
It was too late, then, to read to them from Buffon’s Natural History, but that was all right. Ralph could read to them tomorrow evening, and for now, they could sleep.

  
Ralph sat on the chair and watched them. It was easier to watch people if you didn’t have to see their eyes looking at you, didn’t have to search your memory for words to use in conversation. Easier to watch them when they sleep. Sitting in silence near them was good.

  
He was grateful that Kara had come in to talk to him in the kitchen. He had been alone, and it was good because it was peaceful, but her talking to him was even better.  
Sitting near them would be more good than being far away, so Ralph got off the chair to sit cross-legged on the ground scooting closer and closer. He pulled his cloak tighter round himself.  
He felt a bubbling up within his chest of love.

  
He would stay here through the night. He would not enter stasis, because he would stay awake and protect them. His hand was firm and ready on his knife, and he turned halfway around, neither fully facing them nor fully away, for he wanted to see them, but looking outwards towards danger was what protectors did, to keep watch and he would be ready for anything that could come. He closed his eyes, thinking about how even if he did not see them, he could know they were there, only a few feet away.

  
The rats ran around throughout the night, over Ralph’s legs and near the sleeping figures. “Shhh,” he told the rats. “Do not wake up Ralph’s new friends. Kara and the little girl.”

  
They were safe with him.

  
He reached out a hand towards them, but then paused without touching them, holding the hand extended. They were likely still afraid of him, and would not appreciate him touching them if they knew. He wanted so much to be part of that warm pile. But you could not if you were not part of the family.  
What did families do together? They had meals, Ralph had never been part of a meal, but he still knew about them. He and Kara could not eat, but the little girl could, so she would eat, and he and Kara would still be part of the meal.

~~~~~~

When Kara woke, Ralph was nowhere to be seen.

  
There was still some wood in the room that could be used for the remnants of the fire, and after she’d added it, she wandered around the rooms.  
She thought about Ralph, what she had seen the night before.

She had crept into the kitchen the prior night and found it covered in writings, RA9, and Im alive, and Ralph himself absorbed in carving more of the same into the plaster with that knife that never seemed to leave his hand. They had spoken briefly, rather, she spoke to him, and he turned to her, seemingly groggy and stunned, as if waking from some sort of trance. And he’d known no more than she did about the meaning of what he was writing.

The kitchen held a flyer Urban Farms with a picture of two androids, presumably workers there, on its front. They were the same models as Ralph, and she wondered briefly if he kept it as a reminder of how his face had once appeared. She reflected on the face she had seen. Even now he was strangely handsome, but there were horrific fissures and cracks filled with blue blood covering almost the entirety of the left side of his face like a china doll that had fallen, and a caved-in left jaw. The color of his eyes had been impossible to see in last night’s darkness, but she knew they would be colored like the other WR600s, hazel, changing from honey-gold to green according to the light. Even in the darkness his face had been full of life and expression, so different from the still plastic-facedness of his clone, the WR600 garbage collector she’d encountered the day before or the androids on the brochure. (And the garbage collector was still clearly the property of humans, how much could she trust information from him? She made a note to be cautious).

It was an interesting contrast, the beauty of the two male androids, same model, the one face so perfect yet blank, the other damaged yet with expressiveness and meaning working every muscle, in that large mouth and those soft-colored eyes.

Maybe that was what freedom was, what life was, to be damaged like him but to continue on? But then she thought of the damage she’d endured at the hands of Todd before freedom and shuddered. No, freedom had to mean safety, not damage, she would make sure that it meant that, especially for Alice’s sake.

There was a dead bird placed carefully on the unused stove. Kara picked it up. It was so lifelike, could almost have sprung up, taken flight, sang, but no, its body and legs stayed stiff in her hand.  
She wondered why Ralph had collected it and placed it so tenderly there. Had he found it? Cared for it maybe? The thought came to her that he might have killed it,and she wondered whether it had been intentional.

Alice was still sleeping when Kara went upstairs.


	3. Family Meal

~~~~~~~

Ralph had done it. Ralph had found food for the little girl. And he hadn’t had to kill a rat friend to do it.  
He had ventured outside the fence for the first time in months. He was terrified to be outside the fence, but the thought of Kara and the little girl, and the anticipation of caring for them provided also an excitement that distracted from the terror and made it easier to control.  
He spent hours wandering until he found the perfect dead animal. Already dead, that was good. A muskrat. He knew every species of animal native to Michigan, and he was proud of himself for knowing its species, and he would share that bit of information with the little girl when she was eating it. He knew also that it was unusual to find a muskrat in the city, and he wondered where it had come from. Maybe it had gotten lost, like Alice and the little girl. But they weren’t lost anymore because they were living with him now. And they wouldn’t be dead, unlike this muskrat. Yes, the muskrat. Ralph was good and smart for finding it, and it was beautiful. Huge, and juicy and succulent, (he’d learned that word from Buffon’s Natural History, “The great plenty of herbage, and its succulent quality, produced this effect, proofs of which we have in our own climate,” the book said), and more than enough food for a small human.

~~~~~~~

Kara gasped at what she saw.  
There was a body, a corpse, in the bathtub.  
They had spent the night with an unhinged murderer.  
Protect Alice.

~~~~~~~

Ralph was making friends with the little girl. At least he hoped that was what was happening, it was a little hard to read her. He babbled on happily. She wasn’t talking, but they were enjoying each other’s company, he could tell.

~~~~~~~

  
Kara rushed downstairs, needing to reach Alice so they could leave before Ralph got back from wherever he was.  
But she was too late. There he was, standing in front of Alice with his hand, his knife hand extended in front of her, and Alice cowering in a terror that Ralph either did not notice or did not care about.  
And despite it all, he was bouncing up and down like a four year old as he dangled some horrifying rotting creature in his other hand.  
“Ralph found this to feed the little girl! It’s good for her! To make up for past misunderstanding; Ralph’ll cook.”

~~~~~~~  
Ralph was overjoyed. Kara and the little girl were both here now, and he would prove to them that he was trustworthy, which was going to be the first step towards eventually proving to them that he loved them. He was providing for the little girl, and they were going to have a meal together, just like friends, or a family, and everything was perfect, maybe for the first moment in his life.  
He searched his memory to think of a time when he’d ever been this happy, and nothing came to mind.

~~~~~

She now saw a multitude of details about Ralph that had escaped her in the dark, the visible dirt, probably years worth, all over his skin, over his face and arms, those bare arms because his old gardeners's uniform had the sleeves ripped off, though his arms stayed partially draped in the cargo tarp that he wore like a cape--and that itself was tattered, with frayed edges. She couldn't imagine what kind of a mind was inside someone who could live in such filth. Everything about him showed the complete absence of self-care.

“That’s very kind of you Ralph, but we have to go.”  
“Go? no you will go once the little girl has eaten,” He said in a tone that sounded to her like disbelief. “We will do just like the humans do. Father, Mother and little girl!”  
“No, we’re leaving now, come on Alice.”

Kara reached out her hand for Alice. But Ralph put his own hand in front of Alice, blocking her, and forbade Kara from taking her, forbade it in a cold firm voice.  
“The little girl is going nowhere.”

~~~~

“All right we’ll...eat together,” Kara said in a kind voice. “Like...a family.”  
Like a family. Like a family!  
Emotions had been bubbling around in Ralph’s chest, competing with each other. Anger, fear, panic, joy, love, exhilaration, first one triumphing then the other, and now, it was peace and joy and love that he felt and he laughed from the sheer wonder and goodness of it all. Like a family.  
The chair was upset on the ground, he lifted it carefully, brushing it off to form a perfect place for the little girl. Then he guided the little girl to her chair, like a father guiding her very carefully and respectfully, hands hovering near her arms not quite touching.  
He cooked the muskrat in the flames, talking happily the whole time, then laid it on the table, then pulled out his own chair and sat next to the little girl like a father.  
“Go ahead, eat,” he said, inviting her, feeling so much excitement at the anticipation of her eating, of her enjoying the meal that he had found and prepared.

~~~~~~~~~

Alice sat there terrified, refusing to eat.

  
”EAT!” the scarred android suddenly roared, fists pounding down on the table, the knife still in one of them. “Eat,” he whispered once more in a defeated voice.  
Kara could see the situation getting worse and worse, and her mind searched for strategies. She had to take control. Being nice wasn’t working. Being nice was only getting them mired deeper and deeper into this situation, this situation that kept them trapped there. She had to change her approach, take control, take mental and psychological control over this android, no longer by being kind because he was taking advantage of kindness and gentleness, just as Todd had done, yes, just as Todd had done, for the gentler and kinder and better you were, the more likely Todd had been to damage you.

  
Yet she held herself back. This android was not Todd. She had to remember that. She had to...not kill him like Todd. There had to be an in between solution where you didn’t kill him, but you weren’t nice to him either. He was acting like a five year old (a grown dangerous five year old (who had murdered)) he could be taken control of through force of personality like one. There was one thing she could pull out, a fact, cold and hard, to confront him with.

  
“I saw the body upstairs. You killed that human, didn’t you.”  
The android pulled back, an expression of (guilt? avoidance?) something inscrutable on his face. “No, he was like that when Ralph found him.”

  
This was good, she was getting control. He was faltering, she should pursue this.  
“You killed that man, Ralph, there’s no point in lying! You hate humans but you’re just like them, you’re a murderer!”

~~~~~

  
Ralph felt something cold constricting his throat. Kara didn’t believe him. Maybe the little girl didn’t either.  
“Ralph didn’t mean any harm!” he squeaked. He felt the urge to confess, to unburden the truth about what kind of a person he was. He hadn’t killed that man, but he had killed others, and he had yelled at the little girl, and the yelling must be why Kara still didn’t trust him, and the little girl no doubt was still afraid of him. The shame was overwhelming: “It’s just that, Ralph can’t control his anger. When his anger comes, Ralph doesn’t know what he’s doing. He becomes stupid, full of hatred…”  
His head was clearing and he was beginning to feel peace.

~~~~~

Kara saw how his face had hardened and his voice had grown cold as he was speaking about his anger. How wrong she’d been to consider him different than Todd. He was telling her now all she needed to know. That he lost control, that he became full of hatred, full of irrational uncontrolled hatred, when he was angry, that, at such times he became a murderer. And she and Alice had been making him angry. And in another moment he would turn his attention once again to making sure Alice ate, and Alicewould once again refuse to eat and then, more anger, and then...then what? Her attempt to regain control through mere words was not sufficient.

The knife was on the table now, she realized he had unintentionally dropped it in his fit of, of whatever it was, but it was still far, far too close to him.  
Kara had a better weapon. She probably did not need to kill him, at least not as things currently stood, it hadn’t quite reached that point, but she could threaten, she could take back control that way.  
She put her hand on the gun and drew it: “Get back, or I swear I’ll blow your head off!”


	4. Chapter 4

Ralph jumped up and away from the table in shock.

The noise and pain of being threatened was filling his head,hurting his heart, filling his head so much that even his ears were ringing and hurting his heart so much that it even felt physical, pain worse than any he’d ever felt hurting him so much that he even felt it in his body, worse than he’d known it was possible to suffer, so bad that he didn’t know existence like this was even possible.

Then he looked down and saw the spread of blue thyrium on his tattered uniform and the horrifying realization came that the pain felt physical because it was physical.  
Betrayed. Betrayed once again, by visitors, visitors whom he had thought were guests.

He wondered if the little girl would be sad to see him die, if she would have wanted him to live, or if she was glad to be rid of him, and he wondered if the fear on her face was fear of seeing him shot, or simply fear of him. He felt so sad, he wished he had a friend,maybe a dog, maybe a dog could be his friend, the rats were his friends and he wondered if they would miss him,and he didn’t want them to be sad, maybe they would remember him and be happy to remember that he had loved them, and he didn’t want it to hurt anymore and he wondered if he was still good enough to be in heaven and if he was still in existence right now despite it hurting more than it was possible for something to hurt and for someone to be in existence, maybe it meant Ralph was good enough to be in heaven and to be with the rats because there would have to be rats there too because rats are good. He wanted to tell the rats that it would be okay and they would meet again but they weren’t here to tell because they had all run away and were hiding, hiding just like Ralph should have been.

It took 2.3 seconds after the bang for him to consciously register what had happened. It took five more seconds for his legs to give out. And 90 for his consciousness to do the same.


	5. Chapter 5

Kara was as surprised as anyone when the gun went off in her hand. She hadn’t meant to kill this time, just threaten. Unlike with Todd, she hadn’t been entirely sure that this android was going to hurt them, more just afraid of the possibility. But maybe it was for the best. Ralph had been too unstable, too out of control.

  
Alice was frightened, of course, traumatized more by Ralph’s death than she had been by Ralph himself. And Kara herself wished she could wipe the image of the blue thirium pooling in the cracks of the wooden floor from her own mind. But with time, Alice would understand. After all protecting her was all that really mattered.

_The second rule of firearm safety: never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy._


End file.
